Graphical User Interface project on Spartan-3 FPGA

I am a student of Electronics and I am going to do semester work on the 
topic "Implementation of Graphical User Interfaces on an Embedded Platform". 
We are allowed to choose a project of our own so this is why I am currently 
looking for suitable project ideas. The work shall be implemented on a 
Xilinx Spartan-3A/3AN Starter Kit Board, making use of the Microblaze CPU.

As most important features the board brings a Spartan-3A FPGA, a 50 MHz 
crystal oscillator, 32Mx16 DDR2 SDRAM, 32 Mbit parallel Flash, a RS-232 
serial port, PS/2-style mouse/keyboard port, a VGA video output port and 
some push-buttons and switches.

I am not looking for an already finished solution to but I want to work it 
out for myself. And first of all I want to learn some more things about 
Microblaze programming on FPGA. The project must fit in the above mentioned 
topic so if someone did something similar or has ideas how to combine the 
GUI topic with FPGA Hardware / Software Co-Design then please send me 
details of this.

Thanks in advance. Any ideas on this subject are really appreciated.

Simon

On Jun 1, 3:46=A0am, "Simon Piekert" <currypie...@arcor.de> wrote:
> I am a student of Electronics and I am going to do semester work on the
> topic "Implementation of Graphical User Interfaces on an Embedded Platfor=
m".
> We are allowed to choose a project of our own so this is why I am current=
ly
> looking for suitable project ideas. The work shall be implemented on a
> Xilinx Spartan-3A/3AN Starter Kit Board, making use of the Microblaze CPU=
.
>
> As most important features the board brings a Spartan-3A FPGA, a 50 MHz
> crystal oscillator, 32Mx16 DDR2 SDRAM, 32 Mbit parallel Flash, a RS-232
> serial port, PS/2-style mouse/keyboard port, a VGA video output port and
> some push-buttons and switches.
>
> I am not looking for an already finished solution to but I want to work i=
t
> out for myself. And first of all I want to learn some more things about
> Microblaze programming on FPGA. The project must fit in the above mention=
ed
> topic so if someone did something similar or has ideas how to combine the
> GUI topic with FPGA Hardware / Software Co-Design then please send me
> details of this.
>
> Thanks in advance. Any ideas on this subject are really appreciated.
>
> Simon

Keep in mind that most low-cost development boards have low-
functionality VGA ports.  You can have red green and blue each
completely on or completely off, no 256 shades of gray per channel.
You can get several colors out of this but it's not much for a GUI.

maybe this is interesting for you

http://www.genode-labs.com/produkte/fpga-graphics

"Simon Piekert" <currypieker@arcor.de> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:4c04bad5$0$6892$9b4e6d93@newsspool2.arcor-online.net...
>I am a student of Electronics and I am going to do semester work on the 
>topic "Implementation of Graphical User Interfaces on an Embedded 
>Platform". We are allowed to choose a project of our own so this is why I 
>am currently looking for suitable project ideas. The work shall be 
>implemented on a Xilinx Spartan-3A/3AN Starter Kit Board, making use of the 
>Microblaze CPU.
>
> As most important features the board brings a Spartan-3A FPGA, a 50 MHz 
> crystal oscillator, 32Mx16 DDR2 SDRAM, 32 Mbit parallel Flash, a RS-232 
> serial port, PS/2-style mouse/keyboard port, a VGA video output port and 
> some push-buttons and switches.
>
> I am not looking for an already finished solution to but I want to work it 
> out for myself. And first of all I want to learn some more things about 
> Microblaze programming on FPGA. The project must fit in the above 
> mentioned topic so if someone did something similar or has ideas how to 
> combine the GUI topic with FPGA Hardware / Software Co-Design then please 
> send me details of this.
>
> Thanks in advance. Any ideas on this subject are really appreciated.
>
> Simon
>
> 

On 6/1/2010 6:20 AM, John_H wrote:
> On Jun 1, 3:46 am, "Simon Piekert"<currypie...@arcor.de>  wrote:
>> I am a student of Electronics and I am going to do semester work on the
>> topic "Implementation of Graphical User Interfaces on an Embedded Platform".
>> We are allowed to choose a project of our own so this is why I am currently
>> looking for suitable project ideas. The work shall be implemented on a
>> Xilinx Spartan-3A/3AN Starter Kit Board, making use of the Microblaze CPU.
>>
>> As most important features the board brings a Spartan-3A FPGA, a 50 MHz
>> crystal oscillator, 32Mx16 DDR2 SDRAM, 32 Mbit parallel Flash, a RS-232
>> serial port, PS/2-style mouse/keyboard port, a VGA video output port and
>> some push-buttons and switches.
>>
>> I am not looking for an already finished solution to but I want to work it
>> out for myself. And first of all I want to learn some more things about
>> Microblaze programming on FPGA. The project must fit in the above mentioned
>> topic so if someone did something similar or has ideas how to combine the
>> GUI topic with FPGA Hardware / Software Co-Design then please send me
>> details of this.
>>
>> Thanks in advance. Any ideas on this subject are really appreciated.
>>
>> Simon
>
> Keep in mind that most low-cost development boards have low-
> functionality VGA ports.  You can have red green and blue each
> completely on or completely off, no 256 shades of gray per channel.
> You can get several colors out of this but it's not much for a GUI.

Looks to me like the "Xilinx Spartan-3A/3AN Starter Kit Board" has 
simple four bit resistor DAC for each color, which is to say sixteen 
shades for each of R, G, B or 4096 possible colors.  Not amazing, but 
probably adequate for a student's GUI project.

On 1 Jun., 09:46, "Simon Piekert" <currypie...@arcor.de> wrote:
> I am a student of Electronics and I am going to do semester work on the
> topic "Implementation of Graphical User Interfaces on an Embedded Platform".
> We are allowed to choose a project of our own so this is why I am currently
> looking for suitable project ideas. The work shall be implemented on a
> Xilinx Spartan-3A/3AN Starter Kit Board, making use of the Microblaze CPU.
>
> As most important features the board brings a Spartan-3A FPGA, a 50 MHz
> crystal oscillator, 32Mx16 DDR2 SDRAM, 32 Mbit parallel Flash, a RS-232
> serial port, PS/2-style mouse/keyboard port, a VGA video output port and
> some push-buttons and switches.
>
> I am not looking for an already finished solution to but I want to work it
> out for myself. And first of all I want to learn some more things about
> Microblaze programming on FPGA. The project must fit in the above mentioned
> topic so if someone did something similar or has ideas how to combine the
> GUI topic with FPGA Hardware / Software Co-Design then please send me
> details of this.
>
> Thanks in advance. Any ideas on this subject are really appreciated.
>
> Simon

Hi Simon,
are you intending to use the VGA interface at all?
(for embeded systems, not all LCDs provide VGA input and over the net
it's totally irrelevant (e.g. X11))

As for a starting point you might consider this:
http://www.petalogix.com/resources/documentation/petalinux/userguide/ReferenceDesigns/XilinxBoards

There once was a downloadable version, ready to use with sources etc.
I'm not sure if this is still available.
But since it's linux there must be sources available.

Have a nice synthesis
 Eilert

Hi Simon,
the mentioned link is for the Spartan 3E Starter kit.
I missed that you are using the S3A/AN Starter kit.
Sorry.

Have a nice synthesis
  Eilert

Simon Piekert wrote:
> I am a student of Electronics and I am going to do semester work on
> the topic "Implementation of Graphical User Interfaces on an Embedded
> Platform". We are allowed to choose a project of our own so this is
> why I am currently looking for suitable project ideas. The work shall
> be implemented on a Xilinx Spartan-3A/3AN Starter Kit Board, making
> use of the Microblaze CPU.
> As most important features the board brings a Spartan-3A FPGA, a 50
> MHz crystal oscillator, 32Mx16 DDR2 SDRAM, 32 Mbit parallel Flash, a
> RS-232 serial port, PS/2-style mouse/keyboard port, a VGA video
> output port and some push-buttons and switches.
>
> I am not looking for an already finished solution to but I want to
> work it out for myself. And first of all I want to learn some more
> things about Microblaze programming on FPGA. The project must fit in
> the above mentioned topic so if someone did something similar or has
> ideas how to combine the GUI topic with FPGA Hardware / Software
> Co-Design then please send me details of this.
>
> Thanks in advance. Any ideas on this subject are really appreciated.
>
> Simon

How about implementing a game around the GUI system, like chess or
something?
I implemented Tom Kerrigan's TSCP Chess on a Spartan 3 pretty easily:
http://www.alternatezone.com/images/NanoChess.jpg
(it evetually had graphic pieces and nicer buttons)
http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP

Just an idea.

Dave.

-- 
================================================
Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
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In comp.arch.fpga David L. Jones <altzone@gmail.com> wrote:
...
> How about implementing a game around the GUI system, like chess or
> something?
> I implemented Tom Kerrigan's TSCP Chess on a Spartan 3 pretty easily:
> http://www.alternatezone.com/images/NanoChess.jpg
> (it evetually had graphic pieces and nicer buttons)
> http://www.tckerrigan.com/Chess/TSCP

> Just an idea.
http://www.fpgaarcade.com/


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